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Media Parrots Hamas’ Death Toll Lies — Shows No Interest in Fact-Checking or Accountability
A Palestinian Hamas terrorist shakes hands with a child as they stand guard as people gather on the day of the handover of Israeli hostages, as part of a ceasefire and a hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Feb. 22, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
The war in Gaza resumed last week, after Hamas rejected a ceasefire extension that would have required it to release the remaining Israeli hostages — half of whom are now believed to be dead. In response, Israel carried out targeted airstrikes.
Meanwhile, the Iranian regime’s other terror proxy, the Houthis, joined the assault — launching a ballistic missile from Yemen as Hamas also fired rockets from Gaza. The Houthi strike sent hundreds of thousands of Israeli civilians scrambling for shelter early Sunday morning.
On March 18, the Israeli Air Force eliminated multiple senior Hamas leaders, including the head of its interior ministry and the operations chief of its internal security arm. These were significant, surgical hits.
Because these were the IDF’s first major operation since January’s temporary ceasefire, the strikes were bound to make headlines. What’s troubling, however, is how swiftly the media reverted to old habits — once again parroting Hamas’ death tolls without a trace of skepticism or context.
It was a grim rerun of October 2023’s Al-Ahli Hospital debacle, where major news outlets rushed to blame Israel for a blast — later proven to be a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket — that struck a hospital parking lot, not the hospital itself, and killed a fraction of the “500” initially claimed. But Hamas knew it didn’t need facts — it could count on compliant journalists to amplify the lie.
And here we are again.
On Tuesday, headlines across The New York Times, CNN, AP, BBC, The Guardian, TIME, and others all regurgitated the same line: “More than 400 people killed, mostly women and children, in Gaza’s deadliest day since November 7.”
Their source? “Gaza’s Health Ministry.”
A few outlets mumbled, almost apologetically, that this “ministry” is run by Hamas. Even fewer explained that Hamas doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Airstrikes were carried out to target senior Hamas leaders—yet major outlets led with casualty claims from Hamas, without even naming them as the source. When the media erases Hamas’ responsibility and hides their role in this war, they’re not reporting—they’re protecting. pic.twitter.com/pPoxzrtUuH
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) March 21, 2025
CNN and others even quoted the Palestinian UN envoy, Dr. Riyad Mansour, as he lamented the bloodshed during the “holy month of Ramadan,” insisting that “no one would fight during Ramadan” in his tradition.
Evidently, it’s a fairly recent tradition, given that Hamas launched a barrage of rockets at Israeli cities on May 10, 2021 — squarely during Ramadan, just two days before the month ended.
Gaza’s “Health Ministry” is also the sole source behind this week’s new wave of headlines portraying apocalyptic scenes of carnage, with the death toll reportedly surging past 50,000.
Many anti-Israel biases of the Gaza fatality story are encapsulated in this article citing 50,000 killed. This is willful ignorance on the part of CNN and these journalists. Here is a review of how this article is a gross misrepresentation on many levels: 1/ pic.twitter.com/zAGK5F7eIj
— Aizenberg (@Aizenberg55) March 23, 2025
Once again, CNN led the pack in conferring legitimacy on Hamas’ numbers, describing the figure as a “grim milestone for a war with no end in sight, as Israel resumes fighting and warns of even tougher days ahead.”
Perhaps anticipating some readers might not take the Hamas-run ministry’s claims at face value, CNN turned to that other unimpeachable source of clarity on Israel — the United Nations. According to the UN, “the majority of deaths are women and children,” though “the true toll could be much higher, with many thousands believed to still be under the rubble.”
Some outlets didn’t even bother attributing the figure to Hamas’ health ministry, as a glance at Google’s top stories reveals headlines painting Israel as recklessly escalating an “expanded offensive,” with little context beyond the suggestion of malice or collective punishment.
The media, once again, appears to have learned nothing. If the Al-Ahli debacle offered any lessons, the breathless, copy-paste coverage of the past week showed they were quickly forgotten.
Some reminders for the journalists whose standards have slipped:
- The Hamas-run health ministry’s casualty counts have been repeatedly exposed as inflated and manipulated. A recent analysis by the Henry Jackson Society found male combatants were misclassified as women and children to skew the ratio.
- Claims that a “majority” of those killed are women and children have been debunked repeatedly.
- Israel continues to drop leaflets, send texts, and urge civilians to evacuate targeted zones. Hamas, meanwhile, orders civilians to stay put — so their deaths can be leveraged as propaganda — while its leaders flee to underground bunkers.
So yes, the war has resumed — and with it, the media’s war on accuracy. Although to be fair, it’s not clear they ever observed a ceasefire to begin with.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post Media Parrots Hamas’ Death Toll Lies — Shows No Interest in Fact-Checking or Accountability first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Former Columbia University President Appointed as UK Economic Adviser
Columbia University administrators and faculty, led by President Minouche Shafik, testified before the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce on April 17, 2024. Photo: Jack Gruber/Reuters Connect
i24 News – British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has named Minouche Shafik, former president of Columbia University, as his chief economic adviser at Downing Street, a move aimed at stabilizing the country’s fragile economy and averting a potential budget crisis.
Shafik, an economist of Egyptian origin with dual British and American nationality, has held senior roles at the Bank of England, the IMF, and the World Bank.
She later led the London School of Economics and was elevated to the House of Lords in 2020.
Her tenure in the United States was more turbulent. Shafik stepped down as president of Columbia University in 2024 after just a year in office, amid fierce criticism over her handling of pro-Palestinian protests following the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, and the subsequent war in Gaza.
US officials accused her of failing to confront antisemitism on campus, while students and faculty condemned her decision to call in police to dismantle protest encampments.
Since returning to Britain, Shafik has played an active role in policy and cultural institutions. She advised Foreign Secretary David Lammy on international aid reform, has chaired the Victoria & Albert Museum since January, and led the “Economy 2030” inquiry for the Resolution Foundation, where she argued for reforms to the UK’s system of wealth taxation.
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Israel Mulls West Bank Annexation in Response to Moves to Recognize Palestine
The Jordan Valley. Photo: Юкатан via Wikimedia Commons.
Israel is considering annexation in the West Bank as a possible response to France and other countries recognizing a Palestinian state, according to three Israeli officials and the idea will be discussed further on Sunday, another official said.
Extension of Israeli sovereignty to the West Bank – de facto annexation of land captured in the 1967 Middle East war – was on the agenda for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet meeting late on Sunday that is expected to focus on the Gaza war, a member of the small circle of ministers said.
It is unclear where precisely any such measure would be applied and when, whether only in Israeli settlements or some of them, or in specific areas of the West Bank like the Jordan Valley and whether any concrete steps, which would likely entail a lengthy legislative process, would follow discussions.
Any step toward annexation in the West Bank would likely draw widespread condemnation from the Palestinians, who seek the territory for a future state, as well as Arab and Western countries. It is unclear where US President Donald Trump stands on the matter. The White House and State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A spokesperson for Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar did not respond to a request for comment on whether Saar had discussed the move with his US counterpart Marco Rubio during his visit to Washington last week.
Netanyahu’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether the prime minister supports annexation and if so, where.
A past pledge by Netanyahu to annex Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley was scrapped in 2020 in favor of normalizing ties with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in the Abraham Accords brokered by Trump in his first term in office.
The office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The United States said on Friday it would not allow Abbas to travel to New York for the United Nations gathering of world leaders, where several US allies are set to recognize Palestine as a state.
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Israel Pounds Gaza City Suburbs, Netanyahu to Convene Security Cabinet
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the press on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Israeli forces pounded the suburbs of Gaza City overnight from the air and ground, destroying homes and driving more families out of the area as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet was set on Sunday to discuss a plan to seize the city.
Residents of Sheikh Radwan, one of the largest neighborhoods of Gaza City, said the territory had been under Israeli tank shelling and airstrikes throughout Saturday and on Sunday, forcing families to seek shelter in the western parts of the city.
The Israeli military has gradually escalated its operations around Gaza City over the past three weeks, and on Friday it ended temporary pauses in the area that had allowed for aid deliveries, designating it a “dangerous combat zone.”
“They are crawling into the heart of the city where hundreds of thousands are sheltering, from the east, north, and south, while bombing those areas from the air and ground to scare people to leave,” said Rezik Salah, a father of two, from Sheikh Radwan.
An Israeli official said Netanyahu’s security cabinet will convene on Sunday evening to discuss the next stages of the planned offensive to seize Gaza City, which he has described as Hamas’ last bastion.
A full-scale offensive is not expected to start for weeks. Israel says it wants to evacuate the civilian population before moving more ground forces in.
HAMAS SPOKESPERSON TARGETED
Netanyahu confirmed on Sunday that Israeli forces had targeted Abu Ubaida, the spokesperson of Hamas’ armed wing. Defense Minister Israel Katz said that Abu Ubaida was killed. Two Hamas officials contacted by Reuters did not respond to requests for comment.
Gaza health authorities said 15 people, including five children, were killed in the attack on a residential building in the heart of Gaza City.
Abu Ubaida, also known as Hozayfa Al-Khalout, is a well-known figure to Palestinians and Israelis alike, close to Hamas’ top military leaders and in charge of delivering the group’s messages, often via video, for around two decades, delivering statements while wearing a red keffiyeh that concealed his face.
The US targeted him with sanctions in April 2024, accusing him of leading the “cyber influence department” of al-Qassam Brigades.
In his last statement on Friday, he warned that the planned Israeli offensive on Gaza City would endanger the hostages.
On Saturday, Red Cross head Mirjana Spoljaric said an evacuation from the city would provoke a massive population displacement that no other area in the enclave is equipped to absorb, with shortages of food, shelter and medical supplies.
“People who have relatives in the south left to stay with them. Others, including myself, didn’t find a space as Deir Al-Balah and Mawasi are overcrowded,” said Ghada, a mother of five from the city’s Sabra neighborhood.
Around half of the enclave’s more than 2 million people are presently in Gaza City. Several thousand were estimated to have left the city for central and southern areas of the enclave.
Israel’s military has warned its political leaders that the offensive is endangering hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza. Protests in Israel calling for an end to the war and the release of the hostages have intensified in the past few weeks.